[GWSG] Meeting growth; plants as neighbors; $ to renewables; towards a plateau; heat builds; equilibrium; NASA battery

[Tilley, Al]

1. Growing electricity demand is sometimes used to back expanding development of fossil fuels. The World Economic Forum observes that the 3% demand increase of the first half of this year was more than met with renewable energy, and that future demands could and should be met that way. While fossil fuels are still growing as a power source, their replacements are already at hand.  https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/10/wind-and-solar-proving-themselves-renewables-rise-in-electricity-demand-2022/


2. Fossil fuel production greatly degrades the worth of nearby property, while Australian studies show that property close to renewable energy sites increases in value and local economies flourish. https://eliteagent.com/renewable-energy-plants-could-boost-property-prices/


3. Capital investments in renewables are now exceeding those in fossil fuels. https://energydigital.com/articles/investment-in-renewables-outstrips-oil-and-gas-for-first-time


4. Thanks to the growth in renewables and electric cars, climate pollution is on track to increase this year by less than 1%, a much slower rate than last year. We may hope that we are on the verge of dropping emissions. https://phys.org/news/2022-10-energy-agency-co2-emissions-slowly.html


5. The rate of warming in the upper ocean has doubled since the 1960s. “This ocean warming is indeed relentless with huge consequences for sea level rise. The effect on weather systems is that they can become bigger, more intense and last longer.” Marine heatwaves are already causing mass mortalities among ocean life. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/18/amount-of-ocean-heat-found-to-be-accelerating-and-fuelling-extreme-weather-events


6. Stopping the growth of our climate pollution is just the beginning of our task. The heat will build until it reaches equilibrium. We influence that by further emissions cuts. If you, too, need a refresher on the point, Wikipedia has one. Not that the issue is a simple one. I expect that we will be paying greater public attention to equilibrium as our success in controlling emissions grows.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_sensitivity


7. NASA is developing a solid-state battery with half the weight and 3-4 times the power of current lithium-ion batteries. It is safer and more heat -tolerant, and uses no nickel or cobalt. The battery is being developed especially for aircraft. https://www.nasa.gov/aeroresearch/nasa-solid-state-battery-research-exceeds-initial-goals-draws-interest

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